Month: May 2017

Manny produced a career offensive WAR of 81.2; McGwire was at 64.8, Palmeiro at 66.7 and Sosa at 49.6. But you probably didn’t need a reminder of Manny’s no-doubt Hall statistics, or that he’d already hit 527 homers and had a 1.004 career OPS before that 2009 suspension.

And you don’t need a reminder that the tide is turning when it comes to players connected to PEDs. I will, though, remind you that this was my first Hall of Fame vote, so obviously I can’t speak for what voters did when McGwire and Palmeiro arrived on and disappeared from the ballot. I wrote about my thoughts on Sosa at the end of this column.

Veteran second baseman Chase Utley reportedly turned down several free agent offers to sign a one-year deal to stay with the Dodgers.

Also, the Los Angeles Times reported that the club has agreed to Cheap Dog Jerseys a one-year, $2.6 million deal with outfielder Franklin Gutierrez.

The 38-year-old Utley appeared in 138 games last season, hitting 14 home runs and slashing .252/.319/.396, usually from the leadoff spot. The Dodgers acquired Logan Forsythe in January as the full-time second baseman, so Utley, a six-time All Star, will primarily be used for depth.

Gutierrez brings some much-needed pop for the Dodgers against left-handers. He hit 12 home runs, with an .884 OPS, in 186 at-bats against lefties with Seattle last season. The veteran, who turns 34 next week, must pass a physical before the deal is finalized.

Despite rumors of a trade, Tony Romo will reportedly be cut by the Cowboys, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter.

Schefter tweeted Saturday that barring a “major upset” the Cowboys will have to release the four-time Pro Bowler.

Based off multiple people inside league, it would be a major upset if Dallas is able to trade Tony Romo. Cowboys will have to release him.

Romo, who is under contract in Dallas through 2019, is likely not in the Cowboys’ future plans with Dak Prescott solidified as the team’s starting quarterback.

By releasing Romo, the Cowboys would save $5.1 million against the cap. The Texans and Broncos appear to the frontrunners to land the 37-year-old.

Houston made some major cap space this week by sending overpaid quarterback Brock Osweiler, a sixth-round in 2017 and a second-round in 2018 pick to the Cleveland Browns for a fourth-round pick in 2017. The deal clears the way for the Texans to sign Romo.

The offseason pinwheel hasn’t stopped spinning quite yet, but most major league teams have at least a pretty good idea which players will be in the starting lineup on opening day.

So, because we miss baseball, we thought we’d take a look at the best Cheap Authentic Hockey Jerseys infield units (starters only) in baseball. Next, we’ll look at the best outfields, then best rotations and, finally, best bullpens.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said Thursday Boulware will probably always play with a chip on his shoulder.

“If he had been taken in the first round, he would have rolled Cheap Discount Jerseys in with a chip on his shoulder. That’s just kind of who Ben is,” Swinney told reporters at the annual annual Prowl and Growl Tour in Greenville, S.C., via the Post and Courier. “But he’s a football player. He shines between the lines.

“There are always guys bigger, taller, faster and all that stuff but there’s very few that are going to play better. That has never changed for him. In his entire life playing football from peewee to middle school to high school to college, it’s not going to be any different at the next level. He’ll be just fine.”

Boulware was a twoyear starter at Clemson and a defensive captain. The knock on him coming out of Clemson is that he isn’t athletic enough to succeed at the next level. But it’s his intangibles that make him a coach’s dream. He was actually so excited to get to work, he showed up at Bank of America Stadium an hour and a half early to beat Charlotte traffic, then took a nap in his car until it was time to go.

Savage was the only QB draft pick in the first three years of the Bill O’Brien regime. But he’s a fourth-round flyer who was limited with an elbow injury late last season. He has little chance to provide legitimate results.

Watson, on the other hand, is a weapon the Texans haven’t had at quarterback, since, well, ever.

UCLA edge-rusher Takkarist McKinley went one step further after being picked by Atlanta at No. 26. Wanting to honor the late grandmother who helped raise him, McKinley took the stage sporting a framed photo of Myrtle Collins.

Following his interaction with Goodell, McKinley turned his back to the crowd and began screaming about how he fulfilled a promise to Collins by making it out of a tough Oakland neighborhood onto college and now the NFL.

If anything, Goodell himself should pay the fine if the FCC comes a calling. It’s money well spent for the exclamation point McKinley provided to a draft that hopefully Cheap NFL Jerseys China serves as a harbinger to an equally entertaining 2017 season.

Speaking of unpredictable, competitive divisions, only Carolina has won consecutive NFC South titles (2013-16) since 2002, when the division was created. The 2017 edition is expected to be same song, different verse, with all four teams’ win totals separated by just 1.5 games. New Orleans’ win projection of eight is the highest total for the “worst” team in any division.

It clearly was devalued in this draft. The Bears gave up a lot to move up one spot to get North Carolina’s Mitchell Trubisky at No. 2. The Chiefs gave up a lot to move up 17 spots to get Patrick Mahomes II at No. 10. The Texans gave up their first-round pick in 2018 to the Browns to move up 13 spots and land Watson. The move came after the Texans traded Brock Osweiler’s monster salary to Cleveland on March 9.

Coach Marvin Lewis has done an underappreciated job of turning a joke franchise — the Bengals averaged a 5-11 record during 11 consecutive non-winning seasons before he arrived — into a consistent playoff contender. In part, the lack of appreciation stems from the absence of a single playoff victory. It’s never been clear, though, whether Lewis lacks the will or authority to demand a greater emphasis on character with the roster.

Following that Patriots game in ’07, he could be heard yelling through the locker room doors, “If you don’t want to be on this team, please don’t show show up! You don’t call the offense; you don’t call the plays. You just play. Nowhere in the NFL do guys act like this.”

That side of Lewis hasn’t really been seen since. Brown’s imprint on the team remains strong, as evidenced by his defense of the Mixon pick.

The Oklahoma State receiver had been suspended during his final season for a recruiting violation; he had what they call a “troubled” past and was subject to the now-infamous question about his mother by the Dolphins general manager in a pre-draft interview. The Cowboys Cheap MLB Authentic Jerseys refused to repeat the Moss mistake, traded up and caught Bryant before he fell further.

It was practically unanimous that the Arizona State linebacker was a first-round talent, but it was just as unanimous that he was the riskiest player of that draft class. Between all his on-field personal fouls, a reported failed drug test and a disastrous combine, teams ran from him as if he was a typhoid carrier. Not surprisingly, some of the same issues have surfaced with the Bengals over the years — and so has the immense ability.

In all, the Thunder held a 14-point third-quarter lead. That advantage evaporated when Westbrook went to the bench. Oklahoma City outscored Houston by 14 points with its MVP front-runner on the floor. When he exited the game, the Rockets erased that lead wholly.

The Thunder’s late-game breakdown was reminiscent of their Game 2 woes, where the Oklahoma City offense reduced to ash behind Westbrook’s 18 fourth-quarter shot attempts. Of those 18, the Thunder guard only made four, while the rest of the team shot 4-of-11 in the final period.

The Thunder already had to be perfect to compete with a team as gifted offensively as the Rockets. Folding late in games won’t help their case, either.

Houston will look to wrap things up when they take Game 5 back home. The Thunder will need another Herculean effort from Westbrook, who posted both his third straight triple-double and the fastest playoff triple-double in the last 20 years, to stay alive.

If Oklahoma City wins, it earns a shot at redemption on its home floor in Game 6. But one thing is for sure: The Thunder can’t melt down the way they did in Game 2 — or on Sunday.

What LaVar Ball is looking for is similar to Michael Jordan’s Jordan Brand, which falls underneath the Nike umbrella but has a separate logo and its own athletes. Some of Adidas’ most successful sneaker lines, including Kanye West’s Yeezy line and the Jeremy Scott’s, are also co-branded, as are several of PUMA’s more popular sneakers.

In this respect, Ferraro is echoing voices of the game like THN’s Ken Campbell, another writer who’s been vocal in condemning the culture in the NHL that allows violence to escalate to this level.

Ferraro is consistent and openly condemning of dirty play wherever it comes from – as seen in a tweet today where someone asks “what about the Crosby slash on Methot” and he reacts equally disgustedly. Campbell, too, has written a column bemoaning the NHL’s lack of protection for “star players” like Crosby. Even Tie Domi (TIE DOMI!) has said that hockey needs to sort itself out and that the Pittsburgh Steelers Cheap Jerseys mentality of such things as “a hockey play” needs to be eliminated from the game.

The Washington Wizards and Boston Celtics have serious beef. Flagrant fouls, technical fouls, a verbal altercation with a coach, face poking, and MLB Jerseys Cheap the need for heightened security in the locker rooms.

That was all regular season though, and now we are headed for a playoff matchup. The Wizards and Celtics finished off their first-round opponents and will begin their second-round series on Sunday at 1 p.m. And it will be heated.

Back in January, John Wall told reporters that the Wizards would be wearing “All black everything,” to the third regular season matchup between the two teams. “A funeral.”

The idea to dress in all black came from Beal, according to the Washington Post. His troubles with Marcus Smart date back a year ago when the guard’s elbow accidentally clipped his face, breaking his nose, and giving the Wizards guard a concussion.

Griffin has an early termination option in his contract this summer, and after several disappointing postseason appearances, perhaps he’s ready to move on. A few days ago, Clippers head coach Doc Rivers talked about wanting to keep the team together no matter what happens, and he has a point: It’s hard to put together a roster that can consistently win 50-plus games and grab home-court advantage, especially in the Western Conference. But if roster fatigue has set in, perhaps Los Angeles just feels like it needs to mix something up.

It’s also interesting that the Coyotes haven’t been shy in surrounding Chayka with appointees who would likely make traditionalists in hockey foam at the mouth in anger and shock – for example hiring Gary Drummond as “director of hockey operations” from a career practicing law and 25 years in the oil and gas industry – as well as more traditional choices like Dave Tippett, in a management group that makes collaboration its key aim.

He lit the world on fire as the Thundering Herd transitioned to I-A ball, gaining more than 3,500 yards and catching 58 touchdowns in just two seasons with the team. That primed him to be a potential top five pick in the NFL draft, but Moss struggled to stay out of his own way. When he missed the 1998 NFL Draft Combine, rumors spread it was thanks to his reticence to take a league drug test.

As Grant Brisbee wrote back when this happened, pitchers can barely be trusted to throw where they want to when they’re working in the strike zone. It’s pretty easy to screw up and hit someone in the head when you’re trying to throw behind him or in tight.

Chris Paul is the world’s smallest bully. The Jazz found that out the hard way on Friday night as the Clippers’ veteran point guard powered a second half comeback to give Los Angeles a 111-106 win in Game 3 to take a 2-1 series lead.

Paul has been in takeover mode late in games all series. That trend continued in Game 3. Paul scored 24 of his team-high 34 points in the second half to rally the Clippers back from a nine-point halftime deficit.

Paul wasn’t just scoring efficiently — he shot 12-of-22 from Wholesale Cheap Jerseys China the field — he also added 10 assists and seven rebounds. He was in complete command late in the game, making plays for himself and others.

A fun event during the break in Clippers vs. Jazz turned ugly when the Clippers fan turned his inflatable ball around and rammed a small child representing the Jazz.

There was no reason for this. Clippers fan was clearly winning, he had a height and weight advantage as well as longer legs — there was no need to obliterate his opponent. Thankfully, Jazz Bear was there to play the role of enforcer and exact for sweet, sweet revenge.

I’m not one to condone violence, but Clippers kid was an ass. The brutality of the hit from Jazz Bear can’t be understated, either. Those giant inflatable balls are there to protect against collisions from the side. By Jazz Bear rocking the kid like this he just crashed straight into the floor, getting little (if any) protection from his inflatable prison.

Also, it should probably be noted that this was definitely all a setup by the team to spark a little home crowd hatred towards the Clippers.

He’s trying to throw an around-the-back pass to Kyrie Irving, but there’s absolutely no reason for him to do that. With the Cleveland Cavaliers up three and time running out, all Smith needed to do was keep dribbling and take the intentional foul, or perhaps toss it to Irving if possible with a safer pass. The only bad outlet would have been a turnover, and he did that. Sure, basketball is instinctual, but that’s a situation where Smith has to think smarter.

He knew, though! Here’s his sheepish reaction.

It didn’t cost Cleveland, because the good look that Paul George subsequently got missed badly and LeBron James clinched the game at the free throw line. But if George had hit that Cheap High Quality Soccer Jerseys shot and the Indiana Pacers won the game, Smith’s pass could’ve forced Cleveland to play another totally unnecessary Cheap Hats And Jerseys game instead of sweeping the first-round series.

The 21-year-old Watson is a native of Gainesville, Ga., where he grew up with his mother and siblings in a home built by Habitat for Humanity and furnished by former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Atlanta Falcons running back Warrick Dunn. Habitat is a cause that remains near to Watson’s heart.

In 2015, Watson was awarded Habitat’s first-ever Next Generation award, to honor children who grew up in Habitat homes and went on to achieve great things. He certainly fits the bill.

It wasn’t just a house. It was a home for Watson’s family, and it brought stability and hope. That foundation helped Watson become who he is on the field, too.

“I know where I was before, and I know where I want to go,” Watson said via ESPN’s David Hale in 2015. “I’m not afraid of who I am.”

Players are often asked to step into roles that they might not be used to, and that includes Reeves-Maybin. While teams haven’t asked him to switch positions, they have talked to him about his comfort level playing in space or playing out guarding the receiver.

One place he’s been challenged to the point of success is against the run, thanks to Tennessee teammate — and fellow draft prospect — Alvin Kamara. Reeves-Maybin named the running back as the toughest player he faced in college, which is quite the compliment considering all of the former SEC competitors who are now training for the NFL right alongside him.

Part of Mahomes II’s poor mechanics are likely because of his baseball background and lineage. He spent his childhood traveling around the country during his father’s baseball career, and played both sports at Texas Tech for a few years, before leaving the baseball team in 2016 to focus on football. While Russell Wilson is touted as a success story playing both baseball and football, there are also two-sport Cheap Jerseys Sell players like Jake Locker and Brandon Weeden, both of whom failed to make an impact Cheap Jerseys USing Paypal in the NFL.